Asian Birth Story: Homebirth turned hospital birth

Christina has one kid, Amethyst. She spoke about her journey to conceiving, the desire she had for a homebirth as a medical professional, and how she had to shift her plan due to gestational diabetes. She spoke about the difficulties of her birth experience and in connecting with her baby in the initial months postpartum and the way these experiences have shaped her.

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"When I first got to the hospital, I set up this beautiful altar with crystals, fairy lights, bith affirmation cards, paintings of ancestors from the Philippines and reminders of my grandmother. By the time I got the Pit (pitocin), I was like “Fuck this altar.” It just felt like it was taunting me."

Christina's altar in the hospital room. Photo by Earthshine Doula & Photography

I live in Oakland and work as a nurse practitioner. I work primarily with adults and elders so I had no idea what I was doing when it came to babies and kids. Because of my healthcare background, I thought I could have  control over my pregnancy, labor, and birth.

Before my baby was born, outside of work I was performing as a singer and dancer. I used to sing in the Oakland Symphony Chorus and for years I taught sexy, burlesque-ish chair and heel dance at a pole studio. Being a dancer was a part of my identity for decades. I feel so distant from that part of me and I’m very slowly finding my way back now, but it’s hard.

I identify as Filipino. While I definitely connect with my friends who have roots in East Asia, I see myself and my culture as different. It’s uniquely Filipino. Both my parents immigrated to the US in the 80s. They’re from the same province in the Philippines so I feel very privileged to know exactly where they’re from and what my lineage is. I had that experience that I think a lot of first gen kids have,  of having white kids comment on my lunch at school, to now seeing non-Filipinos get excited about my culture.

I always knew I wanted a child, but I was unpartnered for most of my young adult life. At a certain point, I was just like “I’m having a kid no matter what.” I began by asking my parents how they would feel if I adopted as a single parent. For immigrant parents, it’s a really weird question but they were surprisingly supportive. Then, I started to feel like I wanted to know what it would be like to be pregnant, and I decided it was important to me to have a child I shared my genes with so I just started asking friends if they would be open to being sperm donors. Again, I continued to be surprised by my very Catholic Filipino parents. My mom especially was actually more excited about me going this route than the idea of me adopting. I think the idea of extending her lineage made her excited. Knowing I had their support made me feel more confident in moving forward with the process and becoming a single parent.

And then I actually ended up finding a partner who was open to having a kid. He’s Black, neither of us wanted to get married, and we wanted to have a kid together — all things that were hard for my family to absorb, but they never stopped me from my journey.

On fertility & getting pregnant

Then, I learned I had PCOS, which I’d suspected for most of my life because of my irregular periods. So in trying to get pregnant with my partner, I ended up going through a fertility clinic. We tried drug-induced ovulation and timed intercourse — no success. We started working with a midwife to do in-home IUI two or three times — no success. We were about to try a different method when the the pandemic hit, making it an elective procedure, so it got canceled. The whole thing got put on hold. There was a little bit of grief in that, but then we were home so much and having so much sex that I actually ended up getting pregnant. So after three years of this journey, I got pregnant the old school way. 

We announced my pregnancy through a dance video. I had no plans of doing an announcement, but I always wanted to dance with my partner, so I had one of my dance friends teach us something on Zoom. We recorded it outside and it was so cute that we made it our announcement.

Overall my pregnancy felt pretty healthy. One thing I will note though is the lengths I went to hide my pregnancy at work in the beginning, when I was feeling nauseous and fatigued. And then when work found out, people said things like “Oh, I would have never known because you worked so hard.” And, it’s like, fuck you. I was so tired and I had to hide that and now you're complimenting me about that.

I was also pregnant during peak pandemic times, I was pregnant when the vaccine came out and it was so hard for me to decide what to do. I eventually was like “yeah, fuck it,  give it to me,” but it was so difficult to arrive at that decision. What was nice though is that the people who wanted to touch my belly, couldn’t. I was like “six feet everyone!!”

I wanted to do a home birth. I was really determined to not be in the healthcare setting as a healthcare worker. I felt like people have been birthing in homes for thousands of years — why do we have to pathologize it? My mom, who’s a nurse, and the physicians I worked with had a hard time accepting this and not being upset by it. It was received very strangely working in the healthcare field.

Pretty soon into my pregnancy I learned that I had gestational diabetes, which immediately risked me out of a home birth. I had a lot of grief about that because I really didn’t want to be in a hospital where I felt like I would lose so much control. I had what felt like pretty typical anxiety about my situation, but I had access to way too much medical information. My midwives recommended I channel that energy into reading books about pregnancy instead, which ended up being healthier for me. 

I was able to manage my GD pretty well through diet, but it was hard during my work with patients because I couldn’t get up and leave exactly when I needed to eat or check my blood sugar. 

I kept my midwives for postpartum care and when I asked if they could come to my birth they recommended I get a doula instead, which is when I ended up hiring Cherie. 

My water broke at almost 40 weeks. The night before, I just subconsciously knew to make my baby’s nametag that we were planning on bringing to the hospital. When I felt it, I went to put on a pad and it soaked a little bit green. I knew it wasn’t good but I wasn’t having big contractions so I called the hospital thinking it wasn’t a big deal. But because it was very likely meconium in my water, they told me I needed to come immediately.

On my way there, I texted my midwife and she talked me through what I was going through. She told me what they would probably offer me at the hospital, and what choices I had. She also made sure to say that even if I was still on track for a homebirth, she would have told me to go to the hospital. All my birth preferences were rapidly going out the window. All the things I didn’t want were happening. I tried really hard to remain in the parameters of not putting myself within harm’s way. Basically it was important to me that Landon, my partner, be my support, and Cherie to be my medical advocate. I was really happy to have them as my team. 

I got there and I felt very respected in my wishes. They didn't push me to start any induction. Eventually, they offered me Misoprostol, which I took, but nothing quite happened. They gave me a higher dose and then contractions started happening a little bit more frequently. 

When they checked me they said I wasn’t dilated at all, and I was still able to talk through my contractions. I remember telling my partner that these contractions felt fake, like my body was tricking me. 

Landon was texting Cherie about my progress — Cherie was very pregnant herself at the time, so she was choosing when she would come carefully. We were doing a bunch of stuff but things just weren’t progressing. I vividly remember being told that the baby was coming tonight. Later, Cherie told me she wishes no one had said that because you really never know. 

At one point when contractions were very intense and frequent, I went to go take a shower and it felt so good, but the contractions nearly stopped. By then, the contractions had slowed to probably an hour apart. The staff came in and told me it was time for Pitocin since I was nearing the 24 hour mark of having my water broken. I asked if I could try nipple stimulation instead. They were really weird about it, they said I couldn’t control how effective that was compared to Pitocin, but they didn’t stop me from trying. 

Photo by Earthshine Doula & Photography

I just remember me and my partner sitting on the hospital bed, so exhausted that we each had a nipple in one hand and we’re both falling asleep as we’re trying to get labor to progress. We were both so, so tired. Eventually, even though it felt like complete defeat, I said yes to the Pitocin, and then things started moving along.

First I said I didn’t want an IV because I didn’t want to be attached to anything. But that happened as soon as I got to the hospital since they gave me Misoprostol and needed to monitor me. I didn’t want any induction, but I ended up getting the Pit. I just felt like I had goals and I wasn’t meeting them.

When I first got to the hospital, I set up this beautiful altar with crystals, fairy lights, bith  affirmation cards, paintings of ancestors from the Philippines and reminders of my grandmother. By the time I got the Pit, I was like “Fuck this altar.” It just felt like it was taunting me..

My contractions become more frequent, more intense. I wanted to know how far along I was, especially since I was involuntarily pushing, but the cervical checks were so intensely painful. I’d tried to push the night before too, everything was super tender. Anyway, they checked me and I was 9 ½ cm, but they also told me that there was a lip of my cervix that wasn’t coming off and the more I pushed, the more swollen it was getting. Someone told me that if I got an epidural, I would probably stop pushing, which would allow my cervix to dilate all the way. So it felt like one more failure — I said yes to the epidural. 

They had a student or a resident do it and they had to do multiple tries. They didn’t give a shit that I was in the middle of a contraction, they were trying to get my consent and asking me not to move. They made my partner an Cherie sit far away to not dirty the sterile field, and no one could hold my hand. Anyway, they eventually get something in, but I’m still grunt-pushing and I can still feel everything. Another doctor came in and said, “Oh, nobody should have told you that an epidural would have made you stop pushing. It’s just for the pain.” 

So then I felt either like the team wasn’t talking to each other, or like I was tricked into this. I wasn’t even able to use my healthcare knowledge since I don’t know anything about birth or anesthesia. It was all terrible, but I will say my back pain went away and I was able to sleep. So as angry as I am about what happened to me, I do think I needed that rest to be able to push. 

When I woke up, they told me that due to the epidural, I couldn’t be up to push, even though I still have movement through my whole body. They wouldn’t even let me get onto my knees, which made no sense. I look back and thing that if I’d fought hard enough, they might have let me but I was so tired and desperate to be done that I just did what they asked. I was so over it, I asked if they could just give me a c-section. Cherie didn’t try and stop me but she just told me that I could do this.

They were eventually able to move the lip of my cervix out of the way, but they asked me to push voluntarily on top of my involuntary pushes and I remember feeling so weak. But then I looked at my alter and I felt the energy of my Lola and all of the other Filipino women who had done this before and I was able to get the baby’s head out.

As soon as the head came out, the doctor starts warning me about what might happen if there’s a shoulder dystocia and all this other stuff and I don’t even remember what else they said because I just pushed those fucking shoulders out like it was nothing. 

The baby came out, but honestly, I wasn’t really interested. I wanted to make sure they were ok, medically, but beyond that I didn’t feel much towards my baby. I had a fever, my heart rate and blood pressure were really high. I needed stitches and I asked my provider for local anesthesia. She said I wouldn’t need anything because of the epidural, but when she touched the tear I screamed in pain and she was like “ok, yeah, you’re right.” Anyway, I’d been up for 48 hours. As much as I wanted to have this Instagram-perfect bonding experience, I was exhausted, and I actually remember feeling angry that I had to do skin-to-skin and golden hour bonding. I was like “please just let me sleep.” 

Thankfully my parter was in love immediately, he took the baby and instantly bonded with them. I was grateful because it felt like they were able to just cuddle until the baby was hungry again.

I really wanted to keep the placenta to bury under a tree in my home, but since I had chorioamnionitis, they took it to pathology. It felt like one last kick in the face. I will say that when I saw the pathology report, it made me believe that I really did need to be in the hospital, and I really did need many of those medications I was given. So I know that this is just the way it was supposed to happen, which makes me feel a little less grief over the situation. 

From that point up until around two or three months, I felt like I had to do things for this child, but this child isn’t actually mine. It was this disconnect where I felt like I had to keep them alive for someone else, even though I know I just pushed them out of me. I think it was hormonal, or maybe some type of protective mechanism where if I didn’t let myself love this being as much as I wanted to, then I wouldn’t feel so anxious about all the bad things that could happen. Also, I unexpectedly had old sexual trauma come up during the birth. I think it was because, energetically, there was so much focus on my pelvis, and even though much of it happened for medically necessary reasons, there were a number of times where I felt like my boundaries were crossed in relation to my vagina. 

And on top of that, there was this additional voice saying things to me like “you’re technically healthy, your baby is healthy. What do you have to complain about?”

I wanted to hold space for what happened because clearly it was affecting other things in my life, but I didn't know how to talk about it because I didn't want to see it as a traumatic birth. I didn't want to talk about it like it was harder than someone else's experience. There was a lot of quiet invalidation happening in the back of my head.

We did 40 days of not leaving the house, or hosting any big guests. I stayed in bed for two weeks and had my partner handle all the diaper changes and making me food. I didn’t do a ton of Eastern traditions but I did have homey things like my mom making me porridge.

Breastfeeding was really hard. My baby latched quickly and had this ridiculous suck but it took a long time to realize that I have insufficient glandular tissue due to the PCOS, which lowered my supply. I was triple feeding, which was not at all sustainable for me. 

Cleaning pump parts is so shitty, and when a piece falls on the ground after you clean it, you just want to scream at the world. I was really grateful because I had two friends that were over producers and they had a lot of milk to share with me. Not enough to completely sustain them so I also had to get over the stigma in my head around formula. Eventually, I was able to breastfeed for 10 months and I’m so glad I stuck with it.

There was the first time, around four or five weeks, where I was alone with the baby for more than four hours. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would, and I could just focus on having fun with that. That was the moment where I remember being like “Oh my god, I love this baby so much I would die for them.” 

Then, I got the date where I would have to go back to work and that was the moment when I realized that I only wanted to be their mom. I used to think I was going to work full time and do all these extracurriculars and also be a mom. I really didn’t expect motherhood to be so defining for me. There was this shift in how I wanted to spend my time and where I wanted to focus my energy. I actually ended up shifting my schedule so that I now only work three days a week. It’s a huge privilege, but it’s what works for us.

Looking back, I might tell myself to try and fight a little harder about the things that happened to me at the hospital, but on the other hand, I think I might have just been too fatigued to do any different. But I would definitely tell myself that my kid’s fucking amazing, and all of that was so worth it.